Shaving Soap Bowl – Build Your Lather

A shaving soap bowl is mostly used for practical reasons. I would definitely argue that you can get yourself some very nice looking bowls that add some serious style to your shaving set, and make very nice ornaments too, but first and foremost, the bowl is there as part of the shaving process and you will learn to love it. Many men find the preparation to the actual shave to be the best part!

The Shaving Soap Bowl – For Soap!

Some people use a bowl and brush combination, but then use regular shaving foam or cream. When I see this I wonder, why use the bowl at all? The whole point of a bowl is essentially to use the brush and soap to work up a decent lather, then use the brush to apply the foam to your face. The end result is a very fine shave, smooth skin, and not much waste. This way round is also much more environmentally friendly, as there are no wasted aerosol cans. So if you are thinking of buying yourself a nice bowl and/or brush, then don’t go half assed about it, use proper soap too!

Using A Shaving Bowl Correctly

So you’ve got your bowl and soap (good job), how do you go about using it right? I wasn’t entirely sure when I first started either. You know you need to build a lather and get it onto the brush, but how do you do that? That’s what I’m going to advise you on now.

Most soaps come in the round form of a puck, which is extra convenient when using a mug or bowl. Now, the question remains as to how exactly you are going to build the lather. The most common way to do this is to build it on top of the puck, loading up your brush with soap in the process.

There remains a bit of debate what to do next. Some people prefer to then bring the brush to their face to build the lather, others prefer to move on to a second bowl/mug to build up the lather, and some just continue building it up in the original bowl. It’s up to you which one you do. Try different methods and see. I would say that the third method, leaving it in the original bowl to build the lather, is the most wasteful and the one that offers you the least amount of room to work with. Again, try it out for yourself and see.

If you don’t yet have your own shaving bowl, then do check out some of the ones we have displayed as part of shaving sets, or you can head over to Amazon to pick yourself out a nice individual one too.

How about you? What do you do when it comes to the lathering and creaming?

4 COMMENTS

Do you think there’s a sanitation argument for using a separate bowl? I’m sure it takes a couple of swipes of the face to get lathered up, and face-puck action may transfer bacteria, especially if you do a couple of swipes with your razor and have to get more foam. That also takes care of any stray stubble that may get caught up in the foam.

Of course, lots of people shave after a shower, and soap itself should be sanitary, so maybe I’m overthinking things.

If you are going to use a bowl, make sure that you are using a soap to go along with it. That’s the purpose behind the bowl, brush, and soap. The cream and brush work fine by itself, but the soap needs something to hold it, and that’s what the bowl is for.

We can understand your views on why use a bowl if you aren’t using soap.